Something about the songs of those sneaky little night peepers we
call pinkletinks is both timely and timeless.

Their peeps mark a specific time each year, that window when the
world begins to thaw and a promise of warmer days hangs in the air, but
they span the years, too, connecting people to their youth, when they
trolled through swamps with a net and a mason jar hoping to catch one of
the tiny frogs.

In the middle of February, Kevco Professional Painting owner Kevin
Morris normally would be painting indoors.

Instead, he was loading power washing equipment into his pickup
truck to go work on a customer's back deck.

Winter on the Vineyard typically is a far cry from being pleasant
for outside work. But this winter has not been a typical, adding up so
far to one of the least snowy on record. That day last month, Morris
found, was a sunny 50 degrees.

It’s winter, the wind is howling, the chill is to the bone, and the muddy spaces in the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest’s Barnes Road lot are packed with cars. It’s Sunday morning, and a dozen or so people are congregating, readying themselves for a procession into the hidden depths. They are devotees of Frisbee Golf. Frolfers.

A leisurely walk Sunday along Long Point Wildlife Refuge adjacent to
Tisbury Great Pond turned treacherous for a Vineyard Haven man after he
fell through the ice and nearly drowned in freezing waters while trying
to save his two dogs from a similar fate.

For Wesley Nagy, a popular Island musician, it will be a Sunday
stroll he will not soon forget.

Parents and teachers packed themselves into the community room at
the Edgartown School on Wednesday night to hear which of the three
finalist candidates for the principal position the superintendent and
school committee had chosen - but then learned that none of the
three had been chosen.

After months of trying a more diplomatic approach, officials at the
Martha's Vineyard Regional High School are now considering taking
legal action to overturn a recent decision by the South Coast athletic
conference to remove several Vineyard sports teams from its ranks.

Proponents of the $42 million renovation and expansion of the
Martha's Vineyard Hospital will go before the Oak Bluffs zoning
board of appeals next week for a special permit.

The permit would clear the way for the new building to be larger and
taller than normally allowed under the town zoning bylaws.

The public hearing, scheduled for Thursday at 6 p.m. at the town
senior center, will be dedicated entirely to the hospital application.

Town counsel Ronald H. Rappaport met with Oak Bluffs selectmen on
Tuesday to answer lingering questions about a report he co-authored last
month in which he concluded the town did not have legal authority to
award personal service contracts and special one-time bonuses to several
town employees over the past few years.

New health regulations aimed at reducing groundwater contamination
will result in many homeowners in Ocean Heights and Arbutus Park paying
tens of thousands of dollars for new water and septic systems.

The regulations, finalized this week, will apply to all new
developments and will also, over time, require modifications to hundreds
of existing homes built on substandard lots.

Tisbury Finds that Urbanity Can Be Costly

By RACHEL NAVA ROHR

Normally, it would not surprise people to learn that the Tisbury
School is no longer considered "rural" enough to qualify for
a federal grant called the Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP).

But given that 2004 was the first year that the Island's most
densely populated towns - Tisbury, Oak Bluffs and Edgartown
- were awarded the REAP grant, and Tisbury alone was the only
school district to lose the grant last fall, the loss has raised some
eyebrows.